Chapter 16

A whirlwind of fire swept into the sky.

Aboard the CBP boat, everyone froze for a stunned beat. As the explosion echoed away, Jack grabbed his second-in-command by the arm. “Call the chopper! Now!”

Jack spun toward the pilothouse. The boat continued down the canal, chugging toward a bend in the channel. Ahead, the firestorm collapsed, leaving behind a ruddy glow that shone through the forest. He caught an oily whiff of fuel in the night breeze. He flashed back to the exploded trawler.

Was this another booby trap?

He dismissed that as unlikely. Only a handful of people knew his team was on its way to the alligator farm. Still, he wasn’t taking any chances.

“Throttle down!” he called to the pilot as he entered the cabin. “All ahead slow.”

He joined the man at the wheel.

The engine’s growl dropped a full octave. The boat’s prow lowered as their course turned into a glide. The pilot hauled on the wheel and guided them around the bend in the river.

Jack swore at the sight ahead.

The world was on fire.

“Sir?” the pilot asked.

“Full stop.”

At the end of the channel sat a large log home with a wide dock below it. The smoldering wreckage of an airboat lay amid the fiery ruins of the pier. Jack struggled to understand. Had the pilot lost control of his craft and rammed the dock? He couldn’t put it past an airboat pilot. They were generally a cocky lot, daredevils of the bayous.

The second airboat rested upside down on the bank of the canal, nose buried half in the trees, likely tossed there by the explosion. In the glow of the fires, he spotted bodies in the water.

Scott Nester burst into the cabin behind him. “Chopper’s on its way.”

Jack barely heard him and pointed to the canal. “Get swimmers overboard. We’ve got men in the water.”

Scott vanished back out again. Jack followed at his heels. His second-in-command shouted orders. The smoke had grown thicker, oilier, falling like an axed tree over the boat.

At the end of the canal, the log house continued to burn. A section of its roof collapsed with a plume of fiery ash. The fire had already begun to spread into the surrounding forest, licking quickly through the shrouds of moss-laden trees.

“Jack!”

He turned to find Lorna at his side. Her face was pale, her eyes huge. “I heard screaming.” She pointed toward the inferno. “Sounded like children.”

Jack pinched his brow in concentration, straining to hear past the crackling roar of the fire. He heard nothing, but he trusted the certainty in Lorna’s eyes. He remembered the report of the missing scouts. If there were kids out there, his team had to find a way around the flames.

But how?

He dared not bring the big boat any closer. The conflagration completely cut off the way ahead, and with every gust of wind, the flames swept wider into the forest. He studied the dark swamp. This region of the bayou was a maze of sinuous waterways, most too narrow for the ship’s Zodiacs.

But maybe not for something smaller.

Jack turned and spotted Randy and the Thibodeaux brothers. They had kept their posts by the pair of pirogue canoes. If they moved quickly enough, the canoes could be used to circle around to reach the farm.

“Randy!” Jack headed toward his brother, gathering men as he crossed the deck. Each canoe could hold five or six people. “Get those canoes overboard. Now!”

Randy needed no further instructions. He matched Jack’s gaze, understanding immediately. He flicked his cigarette into the water and turned to the Thibodeaux brothers. “You heard my little brother.”

They moved swiftly, literally tossing the canoes over the side. Water splashed, and the boats bobbed back up. Ropes kept the canoes from drifting away.

Off to the side, men donned helmets and slung assault rifles and shotguns, then clambered down into the flat-bottomed skiffs. There was little chatter. Jack’s team responded whip-fast to his orders.

“Coast Guard’s been alerted,” Scott said at Jack’s shoulder. “We’ve got more boats and choppers on the way.”

He nodded. “Take command of the boat here. I’ll need you to coordinate rescue operations.”

“Understood.”

Jack’s eyes momentarily caught on Lorna. She stood with her arms crossed, radiating irritated patience. She didn’t want to be left behind, but she also recognized she was out of her league.

He turned and climbed over the edge of the boat. T-Bob and Peeyot took one canoe, along with three of Jack’s team. Jack joined his brother and two men in the second boat.

The plan was for the canoes to head in opposite directions. It was the best odds for discovering a way around the fires. The Thibodeaux brothers’ boat was already heading east, their paddles slicing cleanly into the water. Jack took a position at the prow of Randy’s canoe. His brother manned the stern and guided their direction with a thick wooden paddle. They turned toward the western bank, aiming for a narrow tributary that spilled away from the main channel and flowed into the deeper bayou.

Jack lowered a pair of night-vision goggles over his eyes. Ahead, the dark swamp snapped into finer detail. The goggles used the latest technology, known as sensor fusion, combining the image intensification of ambient light with the heat differentiation from infrared. The only negative was their narrowed view. The goggles required constant panning to maintain a decent range of perception.

As the canoe pushed into the side channel, Jack absently glanced toward the fires. He bit back a curse as the brightness and heat of the flames blazed through his sensitive goggles, blinding him. He tore his gaze away, and to his relief, the boat drifted into the darkness under the trees.

His eyes slowly readjusted. The world focused back into phosphorus shades of green. Ahead, a few fireflies flickered like camera flashes in the dark. But off to his right, the world still shone brightly, as if a sun were rising to the south.

Jack kept his gaze fixed forward. They needed to find a way around that rising sun-before it burned them all.

LORNA WATCHED JACK’S canoe vanish into the darkness. The CBP had been left with a skeletal crew. Jack’s second-in-command stood with a satellite phone pressed to the side of his face. The boat’s pilot set about securing an anchor to keep the craft from drifting too close to the growing firestorm. In just the few minutes it took to off-load Jack’s team, the flames had already grown higher and stretched wider.

She hated to be left behind, but at least she wasn’t the only one. Burt sat on his haunches at her side. The hound leaned against her, commiserating at being abandoned. Jack had needed all the room in the tiny canoes for his team. No room for Burt. She felt a shiver in the dog’s body. The fire and smoke had him nervous.

She patted his side. “Don’t worry, Burt. Jack will be back soon.”

A tail thumped the deck twice, acknowledging her but still not happy.

Splashing drew her attention to the stern.

A Border Patrol agent leaned over the edge of the boat and helped two swimmers roll a body onto the deck. It must be one of the airboat pilots. Even from steps away, Lorna saw the man was dead.

Burt stood up, but Lorna held a palm in front of his nose. “Stay.”

The dog obeyed but remained on his legs.

Lorna crossed to see if she could be of any help.

The agent called down into the water to one of the swimmers, “What about Jerry?”

Lorna guessed that was the name of the other airboat pilot.

The swimmer kicked up higher. “Dead.”

As proof, he lifted a gruesome object and placed it atop the deck. It was a severed head. Shocked, Lorna fell back a step.

“Fan blade,” the swimmer guessed and made a slicing motion across his own throat. “We’ll retrieve the body next.”